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greenhouse gas (GHG) generation profiles are very important for the City because the <br />City is charged with a reduction of GHG emissions by a certain time. She further noted <br />that this means that the City needs to begin to look at all projects in terms of how much <br />carbon they are putting in the air. She added that there is nothing wrong with this <br />project by itself, except that it has displaced housing that was going to be mitigating the <br />commute trips of other businesses in the City. She indicated that now the City has both <br />the Workday project, whose impacts are uncertain as far as GHG emission is <br />concerned, and the elimination of the Windstar project which would also have prevented <br />trip generations from occurring. She stated that if it were to be found that the project did <br />need housing as a mitigation for GHG emissions, it is important to recognize that this <br />project will not pace sufficient lower- income housing fees to mitigate those impacts <br />because the City Council has frozen those fees at the 2003 levels. She indicated that <br />the Commission could perhaps make a recommendation that those fees be increased <br />as this is a big project and there will be many employees working here. <br />Ms. Dennis stated that the Workday narrative indicates that there is no definite timeline <br />for moving the Workday workforce into this building; that they were not really sure about <br />the construction timing or how quickly that needed to happen for them. In light of this, <br />she indicated that she would very much appreciate a Planning Commission <br />recommendation to do an expanded environmental analysis with more detail than what <br />is in the Mitigated Negative Declaration. <br />Jocelyn Combs, Citizens for a Caring Community (CCC), stated that Ms. Dennis <br />covered what CCC's major issues are, and she wanted to suggest there is time to wait <br />before doing this. She indicated that there are very few sites left in Pleasanton, and <br />taking a considerable amount of time looking at its impacts would be in everybody's <br />best interests. She stated that she is not sure what the City's commercial /office <br />vacancy rate is or could be in the future, noting that the Safeway buildings right down <br />the street are going to be vacant soon in all likelihood. <br />Ms. Combs stated that there will always be a need for housing, and that if houses are <br />built here, they will always be full, as opposed to businesses which undergo changes <br />when they are bought out or turn virtual. She noted that this has happened a lot in <br />Pleasanton and is another reason to take a little more time and a closer look at what <br />impacts this project may have. She stated that she knows it probably was not required, <br />but the traffic and this project's impacts on 1 -580 resulting from the 900 -plus commuters <br />into and out of this project should be considered as well. She recalled that looking at <br />EIR's back in the days of Dublin's, Livermore's, and Pleasanton's projects, a 12 -lane <br />freeway suddenly came to be, which is what the Tri- Valley is going to have in the next <br />few years, and that is probably buildout. <br />Ms. Combs concluded that there are very few non - controversial high- density project <br />sites left within the City, and to lose one of those and put the City in a position of <br />bringing more infill and more controversial projects is something the Commission needs <br />to think about as well. <br />PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, April 23, 2014 Page 6 of 27 <br />